Australia's Science Forum

Hi everybody
anyone know anything about oersteds apparatus? We bought one from Haines, thought it was missing a piece. Rang them but they couldn't help me in telling me how many pieces there should be. They sent us a new one. It looks the same.

What we have is a stand, a pole that screws into it, with a screwthread on each end, a metal ellipse sort of thing that screws into the top of the pole and then a needle that is somehow supposed to sit on top of the pole inside the ellipse and spin freely. Anyone who'sot one will hopefully know what I mean.

My question is, how is the needle supposed to spin on the pole? It looks like there should be some sort of pin that screws onto the top of the pole, that the needle would then sit on. There is a little indentation on the needle that looks like it would fit on a pin. It certainly doesn't fit on the screw thread.

Is this some really simple thing that I am not understanding?
hope someone can make sense of what I am asking.
Thanks
Tina

googled and found this picture on the net.

Any help??
J

We bought one from Haines at the end of last year and it looks exactly like the on in the photo attachment.
Does yous look like this??

Thanks guys!
Mine does look just like the picture.
And now I feel pretty silly because the pin was there all along. It was actually inside the 'pole' and had to be unscrewed and turned the other way up. It's a shame that when I rang Haines they didn't think of that. Maybe I just didn't understand what they were trying to tell me. Now I will have to send one back. Never mind. Thanks so much for your feedback.

Tina

Perhaps when you send it back you can put your own instructions on how to get the pin out with it and recommend they tell people that when they send them out!

Yes Rosalie
good idea. If they had sent any instructions at all that would have been useful. And I am female. I would have even read them!


Tina

hey
I dont feel so silly now. I got the original apparatus to get it ready to send back and realised that on that one you cant actually unscrew the tip from inside the pole. Its stuck. That's why I couldn't work it out.

Tina